


Bitter, Sweet

by Java_bean



Series: 200 Follower Fic Requests [4]
Category: Homestuck
Genre: First Kiss, Fluff, M/M, Meteorstuck, Napping, not so subtle friend crush, you know the usual
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-26
Updated: 2017-12-26
Packaged: 2019-02-17 05:40:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,318
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13070292
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Java_bean/pseuds/Java_bean
Summary: The boys spend the day watching cartoons and chilling together.





	Bitter, Sweet

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this one for my friend Teky (@ironbubble), who requested a first kiss meteorstuck fic.  
> This was fun to write and I'm so glad I got to write something for such a fantastic person!

Your mouth tastes bitter. You hate it. You know it has to do with all the coffee that you’ve been drinking lately, but it’s not like you can do shit about it. There’s nothing else here to keep you awake, and the last thing you want to do on this godforsaken shit rock is sleep. 

Which is hard, because you’re so tired. You’re so fucking tired all the time. You feel like you could pass out at any moment if you don’t keep yourself busy. 

It’s a good thing you have Dave and the Mayor now. You’re always busy when you’re spending time with them. That’s good, because there’s no way this coffee alone is going to keep you awake for very long. 

You’re dragging your feet over to Can Town right now. You’d be lying to yourself if you said you weren’t excited to hang out with them. You love having people to spend time with, it’s a lot different than all the interactions you had up until the game began. All the stuff Dave wants to do, hopscotch, tag, even just running around the meteor holding hands, has been entirely new and so much more fun than the type of play you’re used to. 

Before all of this, you spent all your time in your hive with only your lusus for company and your husktop for communicating with people. You barely stepped foot out of your home, and you’d never actually met any of your friends face to face before. 

It was a little overwhelming at first, but now that you’ve had time to get used to it, you think it’s…nice. You like having people this close to you. People who are actually there, in the same block as you, near enough for you to touch. 

You like talking, and you like listening to other people talk. You’d been missing out on this entire facet of conversation this whole time and you never really realized it. You feel like you’re making up for time lost, it’s a real learning experience.

You feel lucky to have Dave here. Dave, who’s not only okay with the occasional physical contact you crave, but also sometimes initiates it and seems to want it just as much as you do. Dave, who talks so much but seems just as inept at conversation as you are and puts up with all your shit. Who finds your embarrassing freakouts entertaining as opposed to irritating, and then proceeds with a long winded response that rambles off topic so far that you don’t remember what you were even talking about in the first place once he stops for breath. 

All this time you’ve been spending with Dave has been amazing. You’ve never felt so close to anyone in your life. Physically or emotionally.

Which explains the influx of feelings you’ve been having about him lately.

Dave is your friend, and you’ve been having a lot of fun spending time with him. But, just like every friendship you’ve had before this, it didn’t take long for a crush to rear its ugly head. 

This wasn’t an uncommon event for you, in the past you’d developed strong feelings towards anyone who showed you the barest hint of kindness. So you tried to do what you usually do when these situations inevitably arose. You bit your tongue and suppressed your feelings, hoping they would go away or fade soon like all the others that came before him.

Maybe it was because Dave is an alien, or maybe it was because you weren’t used to this much prolonged exposure, but either way it didn’t work this time around. The feelings didn’t pass, and they refused to be ignored or unacknowledged and shoved into the back of your pan where they belong. There was nothing you could do about it except deal with them and hope nobody noticed how your insides turned to mush anytime Dave looked at you.

You are so fucked.

But hey, at least your fear of Dave or anybody else noticing how you feel about him is enough to force yourself to keep awake with your guard up around him. That’s a side effect that works in favor of your self imposed insomnia. 

Dave and the Mayor are already busy at work when you get to Can Town. They both look over at you as you enter. 

“Hey,” you walk over to a pile of cans on the ground and pick one up, “what are we doing today?”

“I don’t know.” Dave admits. He takes the can out of your hand. “I was debating between tag and hide-and-seek, since the meteor’s so big there’s probably plenty of places to hide here and tag’s always fun, especially since there’s a fuck ton of variations on the game-”

“Wait, what? What kind of variations could you have to a game that’s basically just running around and hitting each other?”

“Freeze tag, for one.” He hands your can over to the Mayor. “There’s probably a lot of other ones, but that’s the first thing that comes to mind for me. Anyway, that’s what I was thinking about doing until you showed up.”

You bristle defensively. “What the hell’s that supposed to mean?”

“Nothing, it’s just that you look like shit today, man.” He says, shrugging. “And I don’t mean like how I usually say you look like shit. I mean you look like someone just experienced the worst case of diarrhea in their entire lives, let the shit petrify for a couple days, and then just for kicks and giggles shoved it in the microwave on high for a couple minutes.”

“That was imagery I didn’t need at this hour, thank you. I am both offended and choking on my own vomit. You did an excellent job there, ass bag.” You give him a sarcastic thumbs up.

“You shouldn’t be offended, you do look terrible and I’m just calling it like I see it. If I ever reach your level of shit scented grease ball then I expect the same thing from you. No holds barred. The point I was trying to make before you got me sidetracked about this was that I think instead of doing those two things I thought of maybe we could just chill and do something else for today.” He shrugs. “Something basic.”

“Something basic?” You raise an eyebrow. “Like what?”

“I don’t know.” He shrugs. “I found a bunch of cartoons someone must have alchemized the other day, I thought we could just sit around and watch those or something. Do you guys have cartoons on your hellish murder planet?”

“We had cartoons. I wasn’t interested in them because they were literal shit, but they definitely existed.”

“Yeah, ours were mostly shit, too.” Dave nods. “That never stopped anyone from watching them, though. So, you in?”

Snuggling on a couch with Dave for an unspecified amount of time? Sign you the fuck up. “Okay, sure. I’ll watch some of your shitty earth cartoons.”

“Alright, cool. We’ll just finish up here and then get on that.” Dave goes back to his construction project with the Mayor. 

You help as much as you can, and you all spend the next half hour or so building and hanging out. Dave talks the entire time, it’s mostly a one sided conversation that you’re not really sure he knows is happening. He does that sometimes, just talks under his breath without realizing it. You and the Mayor just sit there and listen, you love listening to him talk, and you’re sure the Mayor agrees.

Eventually, the Mayor claps his hands and announces that you’re done here for the day. You and Dave go off to watch whatever weird cartoons Dave found. You sit down on the couch and immediately feel your eyelids get heavy. 

Dave bypasses the couch. “I’m thinking about getting popcorn before we get this thing started. You want anything?”

Your mouth still tastes bitter from the several cups of coffee you drank. Your stomach is empty, and you feel a little nauseous and you know that anything else will just make you feel worse. You regret the words as soon as they leave your mouth. “Could you get me a coffee?”

Dave leans over the back of the couch and stares at you, his mouth set in a firm line. You’re not sure what he’s doing, but you don’t break eye contact with him. You do lean away from him a little, though. God, his face is so fucking close.

“No.”

“What?”

“No can do, man.” He shakes his head. “Look at those bags under your eyes. They’re so big you couldn’t even bring them on a plane as carry ons. You don’t need coffee, you need sleep.”

“Fuck you, no I don’t!” You snap at him, pushing his face away from you with your hand. “I don’t need sleep, I’m perfectly fine.”

“Well, if you’re so fine then obviously you don’t need the coffee.” He backs away from the couch before you can get at him again.

“Fine, just fuck off and don’t bring me coffee, then.” 

“Okay, I won’t.” Dave shrugs. “I’ll just make enough popcorn for the both of us, you get the show started, alright?”

“Sure, just popcorn.” You agree. “You go do that.”

Dave leaves the room, and you bite back a yawn. You’re not sure how long you’ll be able to last without that coffee, but you’re planning to hold out as long as you possibly can just out of spite. 

You get up, put the disc in, and sink right back into the couch. You force yourself to sit up straight, if you relax too much you’ll be doomed to falling asleep for sure.

Dave comes back, carrying a big bowl of popcorn. He looks at you and laughs. “Why the fuck are you sitting like you’ve got a metal rod shoved up your ass?”

“I always sit like this.”

“No, you don’t.” He replies as he sits down, putting the bowl of popcorn between you. “Yeah, you’ve sat in some really weird positions before, some of which I didn’t think were physically possible, but for all the freaky pretzel bending you’ve done in the past I don’t think I’ve ever seen you sit this stiff.”

Dave pokes you in the shoulder a couple times, and you bat his hand away. “Keep it up and I’ll take the rod out of my ass and force it down your throat.”

“Ah, so you’re saying there is a rod down there.” He pokes you lower, in the hip this time. 

“Given what I already said I was going to do to you, is that really something you want to risk finding out?”

“Not really, no. Contrary to popular belief I have zero interest in swallowing your shit stick.”

“Oh,” you smirk, “so there’s been talk of you swallowing my stick before?”

“What? No, what the hell gave you that ridiculous idea?”

“You just said it!” You pick up a piece of popcorn and toss it at him. “Hey, remind me, isn’t stick another word humans use to refer to-”

“Shit, I forgot to press play.” Dave interrupts, getting up and running over to the tv. “Karkat, I think you’ll like this show. The main guy kinda reminds me of you.”

“Oh.” You grimace at the thought of watching something like that. The last thing you want to see is your own fucked up personality reflected back at you through an animated lens. 

“Now that I think about it,” Dave says as he flops back onto the couch, “there’s a better chance you’ll hate it. Who knows? Guess we’ll just have to watch it and find out.”

“Yeah, I guess.” You shrug, even though you’re pretty sure at this point you’re going to despise it. Whatever, you’ll give it the benefit of the doubt for now.

The show starts, and within the first two minutes you can determine that it’s weird as shit but not if you love or hate it. 

“I don’t think I like Zim,” you admit after a couple minutes, “he’s obnoxiously dense and annoying as hell. I’m losing function in my pan just listening to him speak. That’s the one I remind you of?”

“Yeah, that’s him.” He replies. “That’s the first thing I thought of the moment I read one of your god awful rants.”

“I sound like that to you?” You sounded like that in your head, sure, but you always thought you sounded at least a little less awful to everyone else. “Fuck, how can you stand being anywhere near me?”

“Oh, you know how it is.” Dave punches you lightly on the arm. “You kinda grew on me, dude. Like a fungus some shit.”

“Wow, that’s nice and kind of gross.” You punch him right back. “Thanks.”

“Don’t mention it.”

You’re not able to keep yourself in a this stiff as fuck position for longer than an episode, and honestly that alone is actually making you more tired than just letting yourself lean into the cushions would. You succumb and relax at the first episode’s end credits. Your head ends up inches from Dave’s shoulder. You have to suppress another yawn.

“You okay?”

“Yeah.” You nod. “I’m fine. Hey, how come everybody in this show has three letter names? I thought your species used four letters.”

“Unlike your weird as shit species, we don’t have a set number of letters for our names. There can be as many letters as anybody wants. Anyway, not everyone in this show has a three letter name.”

“Really?” You reply. “Name one character with more than three letters in their name.”

Dave thinks about it for a minute, you watch him try to work out a response while you eat some popcorn. You know he’s not paying attention to you right now, so you’re staring openly at his face. More specifically, his mouth. He’s chewing on his lower lip, lost in thought. You’re a little embarrassed about how your interest is so easily diverted.

“Miss Bitters!” Dave says triumphantly. You almost jump in surprise and look away before he notices how you were staring. “Her name has way more than three letters.”

“Fuck, you’re right.”

“Of course I’m right!” He picks up a handful of popcorn and flings a piece at you. “I know how counting works, man.”

“Well, good. I’m glad you at least have that basic skill down pat.” You reply, removing the piece of popcorn from your hair and trying to shove it right into Dave’s mouth.

“Hey, no! Don’t do that, that’s disgusting!” He tries to push you away, but you manage to smash the piece against his face and get some of it into his mouth. Satisfied, you climb off him just as he starts spitting. “Gross, Karkat! You’re such a nasty ass wad! I can’t believe you made me eat popcorn out of your garbage hair.”

“If you didn’t want to eat it, then you shouldn’t have thrown it at me.” You take another handful of popcorn and continue talking with your mouth full. “Don’t play with your food, Dave.”

He flicks another piece of popcorn at your face. “Don’t talk with your mouth full, Karkat.”

What with all the throwing and purposefully talking with food in your mouth, it’s not long before you both polish off the whole bowl of popcorn. You’re so full now, and it’s not helping your nausea or your tiredness. There’s kernels stuck between your teeth, but you’re too tired to even attempt to pick them out. You bite back another yawn and have to fight to keep your eyes open.

Dave puts the empty bowl on the floor and leans against you. 

Okay, you’re awake now.

“Dave, what are you doing?” You go stiff again without thinking about it.

“I don’t know.” He mumbles. “I’m more tired than I thought. Do you want me to move?”

“No, this is fine.” You’re so glad he’s not looking at you. You have no idea what your face looks like, but you know your expression is definitely revealing and embarrassing.

You watch half an episode with Dave laying on you like this. It’s not long before Dave’s breathing slows down to an even pace and his head slips from your shoulder and down to your leg. You can’t believe you lasted longer than Dave. 

He cuddles up against your thigh, and you’re so glad you wore sweatpants today. You look down at him and carefully rest your hand on his shoulder. He stirs under your fingers, but settles back down before you can panic about possibly doing something stupid. You leave your hand on his shoulder and pretend you’re watching the show, even though all your attention is on the weight of Dave’s head on your leg. You’re still really tired, but now your stomach’s full of that warm, fuzzy feeling you’ve been associating with Dave lately. 

You’re grinning like an idiot. You can tell.

You wake up with Dave’s face so close to yours that your noses are almost touching. You don’t remember falling asleep, but you must have otherwise you would never have gotten into this kind of position. No matter how much you wanted to. 

Dave has freckles all over his face. You really love them, you can’t stop staring. You kind of want to touch them, but you don’t want to risk waking him up. That’s assuming he’s still asleep. You can’t actually see his eyes through his shades.

Shit, what if he’s not asleep?

“Well, you’re definitely awake.” Dave laughs quietly. “What are you staring at?”

“Nothing.” You’re quick to whisper back to him. “You got some douche on your face.”

“Oh man, I guess I should get that.” He rubs a hand over his face. “So? Did I get it?”

You shake your head. “No, I think it might be a permanent part of your face.”

“Shit, that sucks.”

“It really does. You’ll learn to live with it eventually. After all, you’ve learned to live with being such an ugly son of a bitch, I’m sure you can manage.”

“Wow, that was cruel.” He grins. “You’re so mean, Karkat. Or should I say…crabby?”

“Fuck you, you know I hate puns.” You punch him lightly in the chest. “You suck.”

“I thought we already established that I don’t do that.”

“I don’t think that conversation ever reached a conclusion.” You reply. “Did you want to revisit that discussion?”

“No, I really don’t, thanks.”

You both fall silent. The whole block is completely quiet and it takes your sleep addled brain a moment to realize that the show ended at some point while you were asleep. Fuck, how long were you out? 

All you can hear is Dave’s breathing. Not that you’re complaining.

“How long have you been awake, Dave?” You inquire softly.

“Awhile. Not a long time, but long enough.” He says cryptically. “Did you know you talk in your sleep?”

“I do?” Shit, you didn’t know that. 

“Yeah, you do. Well, it was more like shouting in your sleep. I thought you were loud when you were awake, but shit, you have even less volume control when you’re unconscious. You practically screamed right in my ear.”

“Sorry.” That’s awful and embarrassing as fuck. You can’t even imagine how much more embarrassing the shit you said was. “Did I wake you?”

“Honestly? Yeah. I fell off the couch and everything, but it’s okay. Don’t worry about it. Listening to you talk was interesting.”

You really don’t want to ask, but you feel like you need to know what fucked up things you said while you were out. “What did I say?”

“Oh you know, the usual stuff. There was a lot of cussing involved. At one point you called me a fuck faced idiot and told me to eat your pustule encrusted nook with a fork.”

“Sorry.”

“It’s okay, you’ve said grosser shit to me before.” Dave replies. “It was kind of hilarious.”

“What, are you saying you find my insults funny? Because if so then I’m clearly going to have to step up my game until my words strike fear into your stupid fragile earth blood pusher and make you void your bowels every time I speak just like they used to before we started being bros.”

“I feel like I should clear up the fact that literally nothing you’ve ever said in the entire time I’ve known you has struck ever fear into any part of my body.”

“Dave, that’s a lie and you know it.” You poke him a couple times in the chest. “You may as well admit it, I scare you and you’re intimidated by me. Go ahead, say it.”

“Fine, if that’s really what you want to hear.” He shrugs. “I scare you and you’re intimidated by me.”

“I hate you so much for that.”

“Yeah, sure you do.” Dave laughs. “Anyway, it was only hilarious because you were asleep. I didn’t realize all those colorful phrases came so easily to you. You didn’t even have to think about that shit, it just popped right out of your foul little mouth.”

“Of course it comes naturally, dick noodle, this is just how I talk.” You roll your eyes. “So did I say anything else while I was asleep?”

He goes quiet for a minute. He’s chewing on his lower lip again. Holy shit, what the fuck kind of awful shit did you say?

Dave finally responds. “You said my name a couple times.” He says slowly. “And some…other things.”

Oh fuck. “What other things?”

“I…don’t know if I should really say.” Dave’s still chewing on his lip. His ears are red. 

“Come on, ass munch, tell me! I think I deserve to know what I said.” You really don’t want to know what you said, but the thought of not knowing whatever the fuck you said that made Dave’s face like this is eating you up inside. “Just tell me.”

“It was…mostly…well..” There’s a red blush crawling up his neck. 

“Well, what?” You demand.

“You said a lot of stuff about me.” Dave blurts out in a rush.

“I said a lot of stuff about you?” You repeat. You don’t like where this is going, but it’s too late for you to back out now. “What kind of stuff?”

“Oh, you know. Stuff about…how you feel. About me.” Dave looks so embarrassed. 

Fuck, this is worst case scenario, what are you going to do about this? There’s no coming back from this type of thing. Shit, shit shit.

“Dave, I-”

“Did you mean it?”

The interruption catches you off guard. “What?” 

“Is that really how you feel about me?” He asks. “You like me?”

“I…“ You can’t get out of this, can you? Your broship is over. This is the end. You swallow thickly. “yeah.”

Dave doesn‘t respond for a long time, and the silence is so heavy you feel like you‘re going to be crushed under the weight of it. “Wow,” he finally says. You feel like your bloodpusher’s going to stop in your chest, “I had no idea you felt that way, Karkat.”

You nod and stare down at your hands. You can’t look at him anymore. 

“Karkat,” Dave says slowly, “you’re my best friend and I think you’re great, but-”

Here it comes. You were expecting this. He’s going to ask you to stay the fuck away from him because he’s done nothing but offer you kindness and friendship and you had to go and ruin it by developing some fucked up feelings for him. You feel sick.

Dave cups your face in his hands and you’re forced to look at him. “-I think I should hold off on telling you how I feel.”

Wait, what? 

You weren’t prepared for this. Holy shit, what’s going on right now? 

Your confusion must show on your face, because Dave continues. “Until you want to tell me yourself, obviously. Sometime when you’re not asleep.”

You nod, feeling completely dazed. You can only manage a mumbled reply. “That’s fair.”

“I can’t tell you how I feel, but….” He replies awkwardly, “I can show you.”

You smile, your blood pusher is pounding hard in your chest. “What makes you think that’s something I’d be interested in?”

“Well, I don’t mean to brag, but you did mention my lips an awful lot in your sleep rant.”

Fuck, that’s embarrassing.

“So, Karkat? Can I show you?” 

“Hell yes.” You nod. “Do it.”

Dave pulls you closer to him, and you squeeze your eyes shut as his lips make slow, tentative contact with yours. 

You’re kissing Dave Strider on the couch, and it’s slow and lazy and sweet. So fucking sweet. Dave’s mouth is soft and tastes like sugar and it’s so nice you feel like you could cry. You couldn’t imagine a more perfect first kiss if you tried.

You break apart just as slowly as you begin. You open your eyes and don’t even try to fight the smile on your face. Dave smiles back at you. His ears are still red.

“That was great.” 

“Yeah,” Dave nods, “it was.”

“You can feel free to show me how you feel anytime you want.”

“Um.” He’s blushing so hard. “Okay. Yeah, I’ll keep that in mind.”

Dave’s hands are still on your face, and you take them in your own. Neither of you say anything as you lay together on the couch and hold hands. You can’t stop grinning. 

“Hey, Karkat?”

“Yeah?”

“Are you still tired?” He asks. “You looked fucking beat earlier. I'd get it if you wanted to go back to napping.”

You haven’t felt this great in a long time. You don’t even have to lie when you say “No.”

You hold Dave’s hands tight in yours. 

Your mouth tastes sweet.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you and I hope you enjoyed reading this!!


End file.
